The other Allen Ginsberg

A slightly built, undemonstrative man in his early thirties, almost everything about him is implicit. Not much of a reader, Allen prefers to relax by watching programmes about fishing, but were he to read Herman Melvilles’s “Bartleby” he would recognise a lot of himself, particularly as regards his personal interactions. As a general rule, if something is proposed,he would prefer not to. His marriage to Melissa, a teaching assistant, would be regarded by most observers as failing by any of the standard metrics, though that’s not really a surprise to either of them; it's not entirely Allen's fault, his emotional distance is one of the reasons Melissa fell for him, and she is at least partly to blame for their current malaise, they will probably continue in the same listless vein for a few years yet. His main outlet for his emotions is coaching his son Isaac’s under-twelves football team, the North Side Werewolves (a previous cohort of the boys were allowed to pick the name a few years ago, and a film franchise in which werewolves were prominent was popular at the time, when the then coach handed the reins over to Allen he said “remember this: never let them make any decisions”. Allen hasn’t). To his pride and secret surprise, Isaac is an excellent footballer. That Melissa takes no interest in this is a source of hurt and confusion to him, but, as he says "it's par for the course". Those are the sorts of phrases he uses. Every Wednesday night he takes them to a floodlit artificial pitch where he puts cones on the ground and calmly explains the routines that he wants them to go through, running patterns, passing drills, zonal marking. His players are good, keen students of the game, and the Werewolves sit near the top of the local league, often beating more fancied teams by virtue of their tactical cohesion.

Their matches are on a Saturday morning, alongside dozens of other games on a large field which seems to be windswept no matter what the date or the weather. Parents munch grey burgers and drink grey coffee as their children toil away with balls which are slightly too big for them. There is triumph and tragedy, violence and tears, and through it all Allen remains calm and clear, never raising his voice, never shouting at the referee, the only betrayal of emotion a half-pumped arm and clenched fist when his team scores. One time on of his players brought down an opposition striker with a clumsy tackle, and the striker’s dad strode up to Allen screaming, spittle flecked and waving his arms. Allen put one arm around him, drew him aside and very calmly threatened to kill him if he didn’t shut up, he held a knife to the man’s belly that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The man never told anyone, as he believed Allen to be quite serious. He lives for those two hours on Wednesday night and Saturday morning, and, though he can never quite work out how to express this, if he thought about it he'd realise that everything else seems quite lifeless by comparison.

The Glebe St Chop-House, a Thursday

She ordered the same thing every time she came in and she never seemed to enjoy it. Her visits were always on a Thursday lunchtime, always some point between one thirty and ten to two; she would come in and sit at the furthest table from the door available. She never booked. She looked to be in her early sixties, maybe older but had looked after herself, the gloss of the comfortably off, always well-dressed; nicely turned out, my Nan would have said.

Julien, the maitre d, would escort her to the table, where she would pour herself a glass of water from the bottle already there and he'd hand her the menu. She always looked as if she was reading it carefully, after a few minutes she’d beckon him over and order, without fail, the sea bream fillet with wilted spinach and beurre de tomates. She always ordered a small glass of Muscadet to go with it. It was a fairly lengthy menu, the restaurant wasn’t yet at the level where you can get away with only having five dishes on, but she always ordered the bream.

And so, each Thursday lunch, without fail, I would brush an opalescent fillet of bream with clarified butter and season it before laying it skin side down on the plancha. Every Thursday lunch I would smear some tomato butter across the plate with the back of a spoon, lay the finished fish on top at an angle between the spinach and a small stack of Pommes Anna , lean two charred baby leeks against the fillet and spoon over a few drops of a fish stock and white wine reduction so that the skin glistened. I'd dot a puree of roast pepper between the drops of reduction and send the dish out.

And every week, without fail, she would eat half of it with an expression of mild distaste before pushing her plate away and signalling for the bill. Every week I’d will her to finish it. Every week she didn’t. Sometimes she finished the leeks.

Eventually, I left the restaurant. Nothing lasts forever in this business. A sous chef’s job had just opened up at a one star in Dorset, so I couldn’t really say no; it was a chance to step up, I said. The head chef said I was an ungrateful bastard who’d be back with his tail between his legs inside six months. No, he didn’t want any notice. Why didn’t I just fuck off now, so I did.

I walked out across the restaurant’s floor, I'd normally use the staff exit but that clearly wasn't a problem any more, so it was a nice fuck you to the head chef. I walked slowly. She was still eating and so, as it didn’t matter anymore, I stopped and asked her why she always ordered the same thing. “Sorry to intrude”, I said, “it’s just you don’t seem to even like it very much. “
She regarded me with more amusement than she’d ever regarded my food, laid her knife and fork neatly on the unfinished plate and thought for a moment.

“I suppose” she said “that I just can’t think of what else to order, I wouldn’t take it personally”. She smiled at me, and beckoned to Julien for the bill.

Continuation of service

I am one small bubble in the stream.

That's the phrase I was taught to use to calm myself. I am one small bubble in the stream.

(Bubble, from the Middle Dutch Bobbel. Fourteenth century. Meaning fragile and insubstantial. Stream, from Proto-Germanic Straumaz: a course of water).

Fragile and insubstantial, afloat in a course of water. It's a comforting image, not due to the fragility, but more the lack of responsibility or, for that matter, agency. Things come and things go, but I persist. The show must go on (Originally attributed to Noel Coward, but widely accepted to precede him as a standard trope of circus performers).

At some point over the last year I became a service user. I ceased to be one statistic and became another. The distinction is important. I am not a patient, or an inmate, or any of the other words that people use so imprecisely, I am a service user. A nice ring to it, don't you think?

Obviously, this has not always been the case, I was, until fairly recently, a reasonably successful man. An estate agent, in fact, so I doubt you'll mourn my fall from grace, everyone hates estate agents. However, a year ago I saw the aftermath of a death, I should like to skirt around the details if you don't mind, but shortly after things began to unravel for me. Over the course of the rest of that year a number of things occurred, a procession of disasters. It became apparent that I solely was unable to maintain a continuation of service. In rapid succession there was a police investigation (thorough) an exoneration (relieving, and correct), the losing of my job (unsurprising) and an eviction (lacking finesse). For a period of time, I became I became a homeless statistic.

Not immediately, these things rarely occur immediately, or so I gather from my association with other statistics. Over a period I was cared for by concerned friends, the odd outlying relative. But a sense always grows that one is outstaying one’s welcome. I recall sidelong glances, murmuring behind doors. I could always take a hint. One day I washed up after a friend’s party. I’d withdrawn from the evening itself, but woke early and thought I’d show some gratitude by tidying up. The way she said “you didn’t need to do that” tightly and looking down, will always live with me. It was an untenable state of affairs

I had a plan to reach family, thought I’d hike. It didn’t occur to me to ring. I thought I’d get all the way across and down the country and turn up, tired but tan and fit. I thought maybe I could recuperate there. Rebuild. Get a job of some description. Pay my way.

Not how it panned out, though (from panning, the process of washing sand or gravel in water to search for gold). I don't wish to go into detail, here, I was merely a bubble in the stream. As I am now.

Time passed, I understand that in the normal nature of narrative the journey (from the French journee meaning a day's work, itself a corruption of the vulgar Latin diurnum) is meant to be described at this point. But in all honesty very little happened. It was long periods of crushing boredom interspersed with fleeting moments of fear. Mostly, I remember the cold. An acquaintance, Pete, had been informed that there were spaces at a hostel. I turned up and was polite and then I became a service user. It said so on the document I signed explaining what was expected of service users. I was able to comply with all the requirements (from the Latin complere meaning to fill up).

And that is what I am now, though, from the sounds of things, not for a great deal longer. There is shouting in the street outside. I can hear sirens (Old Greek, a mythical creature which lured sailors to their deaths). It started some hours ago, and my door has been banged on suddenly, thunderously, a couple of times. But I haven't opened it. I retain some acuity, even in my current reduced state, and opening the door does not seem like a sensible idea at the moment. All I want, for the time being, is to endure. For a continuation of normal service. I am one small bubble in the stream.

Charlotte sits in the chair by the window in my room, blood dripping steadily from her left wrist.

“You need to leave here” she says, and each word is clear and clipped as a winter’s morning, one of the things I always loved best about her was her diction "it's not safe."

I try not to look directly at her. Experience has shown me that when I do that, she disappears.

We first met, at a party thrown for the opening of a new retirement village. My firm was handling the sale of some of the units, it was quite an expensive affair, a fairly well-heeled clientele of downsizers who'd reached the stage where having such things as panic buttons and 24-hour porterage were sensible precautions, but not yet essential. Charlotte was catering the event, she had smiled straight at me as I picked an absurdly small prawn vol-au-vent from a silver salver. It was guileless, dazzling (from the Middle English dasen, meaning a stupor). That smile would come to engulf my days for five years.

"I don't have anywhere else to go at present" I smile, but not at her "you find me very much at home here."

"So I see" she says "And I'm sorry that I had some part in that, but I'm sure you're not trying to blame me for this?" I shake my head. Whatever else I have come to understand over the last few months, on those occasions when I've been sat in severely plain rooms by women with patient voices, it is that sometimes things just happen. It wasn't Charlotte's fault (from the Old French faute, meaning a deficiency) that she did what she did. And it wasn't my fault that I am where I am. It wasn't inevitable, but it was more out of my power than I can imagine. It was a sequence of events that carried me along with it. I am one small bubble in the stream.

It was when discussing the nature of culpability with one of the women with patient voices that I learned the origin of the word fault. It was she who gave me the dictionary of Etymology which sits on the desk in my small room. She said that it was good for me for the time being to think of myself as not having agency. She said that I was still processing and it would be some time before I could take control of my life again, but that it would happen, and one day I would cease to be a bubble in the stream. She used the words process and processing rather a lot.

"I don't blame you" I say "How could I blame you? I love you."

It has been a calm few months, and I do feel more myself, it's true. But it's coming to an end. I can hear shouts.

Charlotte is rocking gently backwards and forwards in the chair by the window. She is visibly distressed, but I can't reach out to comfort her "You need to leave" she says again "you really do". There is another bang on the door. Now I can smell smoke. She's right. It's time to see what happens next.

"Will you come with me?" I ask. I can feel her looking at me searchingly, as if trying to come to a decision.

"For a while yet" she says. I relax, I allow myself to be carried along. I open the door, and step outside.